​Senate hearings on America’s various wars over the past week covered a wide variety of topics. Afghanistan was mentioned four times, and then mostly in passing. Two hours of briefing by intelligence officials saw Afghanistan mentioned not even once.

It’s not clear this is intentional dishonesty, or just laziness reflecting how little interest there is in Afghanistan in the first place. This far into the war, there is nothing even close to resembling an end-game strategy, officials are repudiating the idea of negotiating a settlement, and escalation continues, as ever.